


she cuts her hair.

by exactlyright



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age - Origins
Genre: Canon Compliant (Ish), Drabble, Eventual Romance, F/M, Grief, Survivor Guilt, non linear format
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exactlyright/pseuds/exactlyright
Summary: A small set of dabbles written from the perspective of the Warden throughout the series. The first deals with the beginning of Origins and the Warden’s grief, and the final will be set during Trespasser.
Relationships: Alistair (Dragon Age)/Original Female Character(s), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age)





	1. it begins

**Author's Note:**

> i’m uploading this via an iPad, please let me know of any major mistakes or issues reading.

First, she cut her hair. Before it had been long, apt to be tangled with leaves or rough with dirt from their hunts. She first cut it like his. shoulder length. She tried to tie it back, but her hair was too thick, too resilient to change. She tried to cut bangs like his, but couldn't get them even. Her blade was not his, and her hands would not steady. His hair was blonde, bleached by the sun and too bright to forget. there were no roots that bright, no berries that yellow. Her hair remained brown, ever the opposite of him. 

He had been curiosity, and bravery, and dragging her into the forest with tales of defeating Fen'Harel and a small knife she didn't let herself touch. He gave her the first bow she ever used. The shemlen's bows were hard, with metal in the handle that was not carved with the same softness as his. There was no finesse, no honor intended for a shemlen murder. 

Looking into the water (no mirrors, never mirrors) all she could see was a small girl trying to be a boy who would never been seen again (she does not say dead. he is not dead. it was not a funeral she attended, but a farewell. she will find him.) 

The eyes in the water do not mourn. They are in waiting, waiting to see a different set, waiting to be a different set, waiting to be as brave as the different set. The hand holding the blade moves closer, presses the hair next to her scalp. (She imagines her father, killed by humans, a fate she remembers when the shemlen tells her she has the taint and he will save her. What would the gods do if she followed her mother? Disappeared into the moon? Would they gift her with one more future with Tamlen? Would she simply be murdered the same? Is death not release?) 

The hair that falls is not Tamlen's. It will never be. She will never be him. She will never deserve the life that was taken so quickly from him (Did Fen'Harel sense their treachery and see fit to punish them? Trick them with their own vanity? Kill the righteous and leave the coward?) 

The hair falls and disrupts the water. The ripples move slowly, like the waves a human merchant from the sea told her about. (The merchant later accused her of stealing, Tamlen had warned her not to stay too close. Don't trust shemlens. Trust him. Why didn't he trust her?) 

The last clump falls and the water stills and the eyes are still not Tamlen's, but now there is a new set. A braver set. No longer of the clan, no longer Dalish, no longer the love of Tamlen, not even close to Tamlen. They are hard, the light does not stay in the reflection easily. The tears that once threatened are gone and in their place an emptiness, a coldness. It is the reflection of Tamlen's last moment, him screaming for help and her instead falling away, useless as ever, always a coward. 

The bald elf that walks away from the pond, the first place in the new forest Tamlen and her claimed as their own, is no longer Suledin, no longer a hunter. She is the warden, and the quote in her head is no longer Tamlen's last words, but the oath the shemlen, no, Duncan told her.


	2. Chapter 2

She does not know the blight is in her bones at first. All feelings are pressed below memories of blonde hair and tan skin reaching for her. reaching for her at night, on one of their hunts, with the dark sky blurry behind him. During one of the Keeper's lectures about being wary of humans (the exact reason is now blurry, replaced instead with the feeling of his laughter pressed into her back) reaching for her before the mirror, her begging him to let them leave (why was she not stronger why did he not listen) 

But then on the trip to Ostagar her bones ache in ways never experienced before. Her words leave her occasionally, making her cling to his name (Tamlen, Tamlen, Tamlen), her temper is short. She feels something darker than death pressing against her mind. She has nightmares of the creatures in the cave no longer as her enemy but now friends, they greet her above his corpse and she does not look down. 

She awakens cold and lonely. Fearful of what she will become, ever more determined to fit the title of warden, searching in every aspect of the shemlen's (duncan now, duncan) being trying to unlock the cure if only to escape this darkness, but also ever more aware of how distant she is becoming from Tamlen. Where did he go? To the dark city underground? the black city? She will find him.


	3. Chapter 3

They make her a warden and they die. She learns to make friends with death, and sends a small prayer to mythal for justice. The blonde shemlen, the one who jokes and laughs with the pup lives, and she finds herself quietly grateful for it. She reprimands herself for the thought by dreaming the same dream she always has.

This shemlen that she thinks deserves the title half elf is not strong enough to be king. he is a gentle soul, a kind soul. He is the soft glow of a dying candle in a dark room, the rhythm of the grass as the wind wanders through it, he is everything that is golden, and everything a shemlen should not be. And she loves him. 

-

She cries when she realizes. She is so afraid, so wracked with nightmares and darkspawn and grabbing her small knife in the middle of the night (Oh, Tamlen, tamlen forgive her). His flirts were playful, meant little less than taunts to trick her into smiling. And yet. she is in love with him.


End file.
